Limiting that impact is important as oil companies are required by law to return the land to its original condition when they're done mining, but the amount of time required to do that has long been criticized.

Today's environmental focus at the mining companies is figuring out how to get the land back to its original state more quickly and efficiently.

And that is something that everyone who lives and works near the oil sands would be happy to see.

It used to be that people would come to work the mines for a couple of years and go back where they came from, but that is changing as people put down roots and raise their children and grandchildren.

About 140,000 people are involved in working the oil sands, with 100,000 more jobs expected in the next five years.

So, no matter how you feel about the oil sands or the burning of all that oil, you can be sure that as long as there's a market for it and people need jobs, the oil companies aren't going anywhere.

A sincere thanks to former oil sands worker Mike Pearson whose experience and insight proved invaluable on this assignment. Thanks Mike, I'd have never known where to buy that hard hat and reflective vest without you.

Still coming up in our Alberta oil sands series will be an inside look at the local lumber mill and timber industry, an interview with Greenpeace who shut a mine down in 2009, and a tour of the Syncrude research facility in Edmonton, and a tour of Fort McMurray.